


Barely

by Medie



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 01:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is deluded into thinking all's well that ends well, but no one's arguing a temporary reprieve either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barely

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to be writing Kirk/McCoy tonight. Instead, I dared look at the [](http://community.livejournal.com/bridge2sickbay/profile)[**bridge2sickbay**](http://community.livejournal.com/bridge2sickbay/) prompts and found "Pike/Number One - Pike has a flashback to himself laughing in the middle of the torture but he absolutely can't remember why he laughed." I tried a short drabble. A few hours later...*facepalm*

Elizabeth comes to see her. They've been friends for years. Back to the Academy when, while their roommates partied, they just wanted study and then _sleep_.

The memory is quick and immediate as it blossoms in her mind. The quiet, but exasperated way Elizabeth had approached her, surrounded by the pounding music and riotous merriment that was -- well, even now she's not sure what the party was for.

Number One shakes her head at that, letting the memory slip into the past once more, replaced by the image of Elizabeth in medical blue, backlit by the hall of Starfleet Command.

"You're working late," Elizabeth says."Even the Vulcans have left for the night." Her voice is dry, amused, and Number One has the grace to blush just a little. Mostly, though, at the fond familiarity lacing through the comment. "When the _Vulcans_ call it a day -- "

It's an old joke. They've shared it before. Even as Liz says it, her expression changes. The silence takes on a painful edge.

"I'm almost done." Pushing the padd aside, she tries to smile again. "You look well." It's inane and purely to fight back the ghosts, but it brings out a genuine grin on Liz's face. "Did you cut your hair?"

Liz flicks her chin-length blonde locks. "I am well, thank you for asking, and yes I did." She lets the grin widen. "Practicing your smalltalk?"

"According to you and Chris it comes in handy on the rubber chicken circuit." Getting up, she refills her coffee and another one for Elizabeth. "From what we're hearing out of Paris, I'm going to be needing it."

"I've heard the same thing," Liz agrees. She takes the coffee with a murmured thanks. "Betazed?"

"Or Trill." Number One sits. "Which one, I can't be sure, but it's safe to say Yorktown's first mission will be either Betazed's admission or Trill's elevation." Either mission will be awkward. The Betazoids serenely uninterested in Federation membership and the Trill uninterested in active involvement.

"If you had to choose?"

"Trill, I believe," she says, after consideration. "There's a dichotomy to them I'm dying to figure out." So incredibly secretive as a race, but as individuals -- she shrugs. "It would be interesting." She stirs her coffee, crossing her legs. "What about you?"

Elizabeth mirrors her posture. "I've been seeing the Admiral."

Number One nods, releasing the tiny breath she's been holding.

"I wondered if it would be you." That Chris would be assigned to a counselor upon his return was no shock and she'd hoped it would be Liz, but these days, good counselors are in demand. Ones like Elizabeth, with her internship at the Vulcan Science Academy, are even higher.

"Boyce insisted." Elizabeth sips her coffee. "Quite -- " she smiles a little. "Well, you know Phil."

Number One does grin at that. Rank hath its privileges and while Phil's never been one for indulging them, it would have been a shock if he hadn't this time. It's _Chris_. They've all bent the rules for Christopher Pike. Number One included. She doesn't think about the ones she's willing to do more than bend. Such thoughts, she long ago decided, don't bear close consideration.

"No one argues with the head of Starfleet Medical," Liz agrees. "At least, not this one and not unless your name happens to be Pike." She picks at the coffee mug with a fingernail while her teeth press into her lower lip.

"Liz, what?"

Liz shifts, uncrossing and crossing her legs, the nervousness unlike her. "I can't give you details, but I think it would be a good idea if you talked to him."

"We talk," Number One says. "Nearly every day."

Elizabeth's skepticism is palpable. "About something _other_ than the Yorktown?"

Number One lets her guilty silence speak for her. It's easier on him as much as her. It's not about his legs, the rehab, or what he might and might not get back. It's what he's lost. The ship warping away from Earth without him.

It wasn't so long ago he'd been in an office just like this, pulling together the last few details of a mission prep, officers for this, assignments for that, and the thousands of other minutiae that make up a captain's day.

She rubs her temples and closes her eyes. "We did try talking about _It_."

"And how did it go?" Elizabeth's practiced neutrality sounds strange to Number One's ears and she can only imagine how it sounds to Chris. If it bothers her even a fraction of what it does him...

"Badly," Number One confesses. "We talked." She opens her eyes and reaches for her coffee. "Mostly I talked. He answered when he could, but it wasn't much. From what I gathered, he didn't remember much." She's seen McCoy's on-site report and every follow up one since. Calling it a miracle that he remembers anything would not be speaking too strongly.

She watches Liz's face, looking for the tiny hints. "I take it that's changed? He's remembering?"

Liz half-smiles. "More or less."

-

It's less, but more than he wanted.

Chris isn't surprised when Number One comes to see him. Not after that last session that had ended with him storming out in a frustrated rage and Elizabeth staring after him in utter astonishment.

Dehner and Number One have been friends for years. Back to the Academy if he remembers it right.

That Liz would go to her is almost a given. He remembers her stories from a rare night in his cabin with Phil, Cait, and a very old bottle of Saurian Brandy. Those kinds of stories aren't born of casual friendships and neither is communication that goes beyond words.

Elizabeth's conviction to the oaths of her profession is unshakable. Concern might drive her to Number One's door, but a true betrayal of his confidence is out of the question.

"She told you, huh?" he asks anyway, putting down his stylus. All the fuss over his damn legs, nobody warned him his fingers might fall off from excessive paperwork. And it's still paperwork even if there's no damn paper involved.

Number One almost smiles. "You know better than that."

"Right, I do," he nods. "That was unfair of me." Chris knows what she risked with that little visit, how many lines she flirted with crossing, and mentally upgrades his already solid opinion of the woman.

Even if, on some level, her interference does make him mad as hell.

"Still, she shouldn't have," he says, tone mild. Number One winces. (Barely, but he's well-versed in reading the minute shifts and shades of her facial expressions) "We both know that."

"We do." Number One crosses the room, resplendent in her captain's uniform, to look out the window. God, she's _gorgeous._ Chris finds himself wholly unable to be angry when faced with that sight. He treats his eyes to the bounty. Poise. Grace. Elegance. He could exhaust a thousand thesauruses from a thousand worlds and still fail in the search to find the right words to properly describe the fall of her hair, the line of her neck, or each and every curve of her body.

That he's more than a little in love with his former XO comes as a surprise to no one, least of all Chris.

"So," he says, moving out from behind his desk. It's a slow process, but Number One doesn't turn to watch it. He's grateful for that. Knows it's deliberate. "Exactly what did she tell you?"

"Nothing," Number One turns her head when he joins her. The sun is setting over the city and it glows warm on her hair. His fingers itch to touch it, but all things considered, he keeps his hands at his sides. "Everything. You said you didn't remember much about the Narada." It's not particularly subtle, but he's never asked for subtle from her. She's never given it. He thinks, if she did, he'd be insulted.

"I don't," he replies, ever honest. "It's bits and pieces. Nothing much coherent." He remembers some. Everything right up until the parasite is reasonably clear. Enough that his report to Starfleet doesn't read like a drug-induced hallucination, but everything after that gets mercifully hazy.

Almost.

He feels that cold dread begin creeping over him. His own laughter echoes in his ears and he tenses.

"If that was still the case I wouldn't be here. Liz came to see me in person."

He concedes the point with a nod. "It was a bad session the last time around."

Her slim fingers brush his, curling their hands together. She squeezes once, but says nothing. As they used to say, the ball's in his court now.

He lets it sit there for a while, inert, as he stares out at the San Francisco skyline and wishes like hell they were back on the Yorktown. Back before that bastard had blown up a world and turned the lives of billions into cannon fodder.

Before conversations became minefields.

Sucking in a breath, Chris squeezes her hand once and goes for it. "Had a flashback. No context for it. Just that moment."

Number One says nothing, but her hand squeezes his back. He focuses on that. The brief press of her fingers, the warmth of them, imagines he can feel the faint scar across her palm. He still remembers that moment on a world a half a quadrant away, an alien blade swinging at his head and his XO's hand knocking it away.

Almost lost two fingers in the process, but Boyce did good work.

He grins at himself and the neat diversion his subconscious had tricked him into.

Nice.

He refocuses and continues. "I was laughing. That thing was slithering its way through my system, whole damn body felt like it was on fire, with Nero right there, whispering in my ear, and I was _laughing_. Haven't a single goddamn clue what I was laughing at. Been trying to figure it out ever since, but it's just a blank."

He swallows, looking at her. "Not sure I want to."

She looks sideways and he sees the agony she's trying to hide. This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen anymore. Torture is a thing of the past. Gone out with Colonel Green and his chamber of horrors. Kahn Noonien Singh and his supermen. The men and women of Earth reach for the stars and the dreams seeded therein.

Chris didn't find a dream. He found a goddamn nightmare and, worst of all, it's not over.

"I don't know if I should be angry I can't remember or terrified that I might."

"Both, I'd imagine," Number One replies. She turns to face him fully. The pain's still there, but muted now. They're on familiar ground here. Chris has always been a man comfortable with admitting his doubts, seeking the control facing them head on can provide. She's been there for most of those doubts. She and Boyce both.

He looks at her.

"And if I'm more scared than angry?"

She doesn't answer immediately. It puts him off his game more than he'd like to admit. He'd been counting on a smart remark. She's teased him about his temper clouding his judgment more than once.

Instead, Number One lets go of his hand. For a moment, he's bereft, but then she's touching his cheeks and drawing his face down to hers. Not for the kiss he's all but prayed for, but to press his forehead to hers.

She sighs, her breath light on his skin, and it makes him shiver. He's never gotten used to the way his feelings for her can sneak up on him. He barely feels it for days, weeks, even months at a time, then he hears her voice, or even her name, and it hits him like a photon torpedo.

Like now. It steals his breath and weakens his knees. The way they turn to jelly doesn't have a single thing to do with that slug or the nanites currently rearranging his musculature.

"I -- "

"One thing at a time, Chris," she says. It's amused, indulgent, and he thinks he could hear her say his name forever. Wonders if he could order her to do it (Admiral after all, gotta have _some perks_ that don't involve giving Jim Kirk grey hair) and how hard she'd hit him if he tried...

"Can I pick which one? Because I have suggestions."

Her fingers brush his cheeks.

"No, you may not." She pulls back. "But you can have dinner with me." Embarrassment suggests itself in a light flush across her cheeks. "I forgot it again."

He nods, knowing. "Reports?"

"And my persistent lack of officers."

"I think I can help you with that,"

Number One looks at him with a knowing expression. "Chris -- "

"Consider it a welcome diversion," he says. "However brief. I need the escape, Number One."

She frowns, but nods anyway. "I have a stack of personnel files and the number of a great Andorian place that delivers."

"Sounds like heaven," he replies.

-

They end up at his apartment, lingering over food and reports, arguing as if those years haven't passed, that Nero didn't happen, and Vulcan still spins serenely in the sky. Over the course of the night dinner turns into dessert, dessert becomes breakfast, and the only laughter that echoes in his ears is hers.

No one is deluded into thinking all's well that ends well, but no one's arguing a temporary reprieve either.

If they're in agreement about anything, it's that the universe damn well owes him one.

And neither of them is above collecting on it.


End file.
